exhausted and worn, but finally home
by owedbetter
Summary: A clean slate for a homeless soldier, finding his way where there is none. A cleansing for an addict of stardust and saving, there is room for one more mistake to make. Like her favourite story, it started with a speeding car. And perhaps that was the beginning and end of it all. (Pre-Last Christmas & AoU.)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

 _Nobody else notices how naked  
my hands look. Nobody else thinks the space between_

 _my chin and shoulder seems oddly empty. But I know  
what this should feel like. I know what is missing._

\- An excerpt from 'Paws' by Sarah Kay

It started the way her favourite story did - the way she did. And, perhaps, she should have seen it coming. It started from a speeding car; it started from a man who was not quite supposed to be there; it started from a woman who just so happened to be.

The streets were known to her. Her hands in her pockets, Clara Oswald walked along aimlessly - which is, you could say, how she does most of everything these days. You will not think it to look at her. Her dark, chestnut brown hair looked clean, soft, and fell dead straight past her shoulders; she hasn't washed it in two days. What's the point, she might say if she were asked; she hasn't been. Nobody would dare. The hallways of her employment were littered still like pews in an empty church, whispers like prayers of confession in the dark. How they point, how they stare at the forlorn widow; they know not the extent of everything she has lost, the burden of Atlas' grief on these only all too human shoulders. Still, she stands tall; as if breaking were a relief she hasn't earned. This is her atonement, her penance. There is no saving a woman who saved – that's not how it worked.

She favoured wearing a dark, hooded, forest-green coat. Her steps were lazy along the tarmac of East London as people walked around her with lives of their own. There was the hustle and bustle of life buzzing about; it was a symphony composed of voices of strangers all meshing into the song of busy almost-silence; it might as well have been silence to a woman who couldn't be bothered to listen. No one noticed her; there is nothing of her to notice. She was but an ordinary girl. Very clever. Very pretty, if one were to look; but never the kind of pretty that makes you stop.

She hardly paid attention to anything. It was only when you looked at her - really looked at her - that, perhaps, you will see that there could be the possibility that something was very wrong. And even if you did notice, she will hardly say the story. Tongue used to spouting excuse after excuse, she will find a way to excuse herself from explaining the truth. Who will believe her now? Though she did not have to worry about that - there was no left around her left to look. Were you still a lost girl if you knew that no one was looking?

Hers were a young woman's eyes that aged with lifetimes' worth of grief. Wide and rich as earth, there was once a time when they sparkled as if sprayed with the kiss of early morning dew. It has been five months since she lost everything; it has been five months and two weeks since the final goodbye with her last beloved. Around her wrist was still the burnt out device that was her last hope at something normal, something hers. Alas, as selfish as it was to hope otherwise, Danny Pink would not have returned to her; he had his own debts to pay and, perhaps, this was fate collecting for her.

"I'm always losing things," a much younger Clara once said, and it has remained true of her for as long as she has lived. Her mother. Her friend, Mrs Maitland. Herself, in the time winds. Then went her clever boy. As did her modern former-soldier, thrice – in one day, and a fourth time in two weeks' time. In another two weeks, as did her best friend; she will never see him again, she knows. He's home – a place she will never know nor have again.

 _Better me than him_ , she thought. _Go to hell,_ he'd said to her once – and he should've stopped there; God knows this must be worse, God knows she'd deserved it then. And isn't this what sinners deserve? Though he was alive and well (probably; he always seemed to be, eventually), she knew better than to hope that her best friend would ever come back.

It has been five months.

When she was younger, she was told that all she had to do to find something that she had lost was to go to a quiet place and think on where she might find it again. And then she could remember. The problem with this living nightmare was that she knew exactly where everything was, she remembered everything - no reflection at a quiet place could ever bring them back.

Pity the man who almost made it to the stars but couldn't, yes. But pity ever more then woman who had it all - who had starlight woven in her fingertips - only to have it all slip away.

Days and days have gone by where she'd wish for peaceful sleep. She'd sleep safe tonight, Danny had promised her, and she did. Safely did she sleep that night and every night since, she knew; but he said nothing of her ever sleeping soundly. Dreams of him, of happier days that will never be (days that will never come, passing on and on and on), offered no such relief as she still wakes alone every day to the embrace of cold, unwashed sheets. And on this day, the prayer should have been answered – her final sleep, met without warning nor intention, by the collision of a car she hadn't seen before a mechanized hand came to meet her arm to pull her away.

"Oh my stars!" came her mother's cry that were uttered from an impossible girl's lips, a hand against her racing heart. The car whizzed on without remorse, horn blaring as it did. Impossibly wide eyes, she stared on and remained stock still, if for but a moment. Her breathing went from near stagnant to a rapid rise and fall within a millisecond. It took a moment before she returned the stare to the man still holding her arm. Clara, though gentle, shrugged out of his grasp. He let her go.

"Thank you," she said, licking her lips and swallowing what had gathered from parted lips as her mind whirred, trying to process what had just happened. Her heart felt like it was beating again for the first time; the sudden spike of adrenaline in her veins making her feel more alert, more awake, more alive than she has ever felt in months. To the kindly stranger-made-saviour did she then turn her attention, familiar amber stare up into deep blue that she knew in another life – that knew her right back.

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes blinked, blank stare and parted lips mirroring her own, and looked at her, not knowing what to say but spoke before he could think.

"Do I know you?"


	2. Chapter 2

It was not in the asset's programming to be curious, to be made susceptible to the littlest suggestion.

They made that mistake long ago. The year was 1966. HYDRA had Nazi scientists who had discovered the alchemy formula. The details in the files were still incomplete, data that will never be retrievable for most of its necessary pawns were dead before they could be debriefed. The most that the team of scientists who then headed the Winter Soldier project had gleaned from the experience was that the man-mold beneath this perfect weapon had a flaw. They fixed it.

The worst kind of weapon was the one that had a conscience, that had a heart. How easily it could defect from the cause. They stripped away _his_ - **its** own long ago.

The asset was not supposed to question anything; it had a mission, it should have been completed. It shouldn't have jumped into the Potomac to save the blond haired target who refused to fight back. It shouldn't have dragged the man to safety. It should have gone back for debriefing, for reprogramming - not be pulled by a need to learn about its body's history at the museum. It needed to remember it didn't have a name. It needed to go back into cryo-phase, lest the consciousness within the corpse they hollowed out come back to life. The asset was a weapon - a highly intelligent weapon that was given what it needed and was expected to return to base until it was needed in the field again.

It has been weeks since the incident at Washington and its programming was starting to glitch. It had never been away from its handlers this long before; it had been taught too well how to hide in radars. How to become undetected like it were nothing but stray rubbish. It had been hiding in the streets of England, clothed in nothing but stolen too-large jumpers, sweatpants, and a hat. It took shelter in uninhabited homes - stealing what it could ( and only ever what it needed ) - and plagued the streets in its ignorant, aimless freedom. And in its head, defects were starting to take root from the recesses of its mind - memories it shouldn't remember because weapons don't have memories. Weapons don't remember. Yet the defect - the developing virus of buried humanity - told it something else. That it remembered because it wasn't an it at all.

It was a man called James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes. Its name is Bucky.

His name is Bucky.

 _Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable in both schoolyard and battlefield-_ **Battlefield.**

Mission. Mission report. Mission report. _Defect found._

Defect. Defect. Return to base. **Return.**

Bucky. **Who the hell is Bucky?** _Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable in both schoolyard and battle- battle- battle- battle-_

Words kept ringing in his head and it was hard to think, hard to assess what was happening, hard to remember where he was. England, he remembered after a while. London. Right. Somewhere in London.

Nobody gave him a second glance - in part, thanks to the regular disposition of British folk to mind their own business and have a chinwag about it later on when the person of queer interest was no longer in earshot; another thing entirely as he wasn't dressed as someone you'd willingly give a second glance towards. Unless you fancied yourself getting stabbed or mugged or both or worse. His hair was unruly kept and, if he were to take off his hat, the shine of collected grease would be more than noticeable. He didn't take off his hat.

Truly, he was simply wandering about. His was a downcast gaze for the most part but training, instinct bid for him to continuously and surreptitiously check if he were being watched or followed. That was when he saw her.

Nothing of her was drastically eye-catching. Pretty - objectively speaking - and short with brown hair that near matched his in length, cleaner than his own, and wearing a green coat that covered a dress and tights underneath. She kept to herself - her hands in her pockets, not looking where she was going ( like a lost girl in her own right ) - and Bucky would not have noticed. Should not have noticed. Yet there is a nagging in his mind, like an itch at the centre of your back that you couldn't quite reach or the word that you felt was at the tip of your tongue but for the life of you, you couldn't remember, that bid him to follow her in an attempt to remember. Quiet. Stealthy. She never saw him coming when he, of pure instinct, grabbed her without ceremony from the speeding car that she hadn't paid attention to.

Then she was looking up at him, impossibly wide eyes blinking the shock away. Trained eyes were trained on her as he stood, opposite her own self that seemed to be thrumming with the sudden rush of adrenaline, whilst he was poised and stock still. Too accustomed to the danger that it was normalcy that unsettled him. She'd thanked him but it had gone unheard as he then asked if he knew her.

Clara, lines forming between her brows, only looked up at him. A pause later, she finally spoke.

"Uh, no? Shouldn't think so?"

The voice was unfamiliar to him - her accent was off - but it was her face, it was her who was familiar to him. For some reason, it was enough to jostle his memory but not enough for him to understand why. Was she HYDRA? Was she someone else entirely? What is she? Who is she? He shouldn't know her but her familiarity is enough to puzzle him into a state that could almost be described as unstable. And an unstable weapon is a bomb waiting to explode.

"You okay?" she asked. He'd been staring, not saying anything. "I'm the one who almost died, mate; pretty sure I'm the one who's supposed to be in shock."

There was a lightness in her tone, a genial humour. Her distance, kept at arm's length. Around them, people kept walking past and there were a few who spat cold glances their way, for their being in the way of passersby. He didn't realise she'd led him away from the worst of the crowd and to a corner of an old building, relatively less busy than the sidewalk.

"Breathe," she was telling him. "Come on, now."

Clara's hands were small against him and they were featherlight to the touch as she still kept her distance. Her hands were splayed out on either side of her as if she were taming a wild animal that might just attack at any given moment. It was not an analogy made lightly as there is something feral, something primal in the way he regarded her with shadowed eyes that were concealed by the stiff peak of his baseball cap. Something scared.

"Why do I know you?" he managed to ask, almost grumbled through grit teeth.

"Okay. So," she licked her lips. This is not her first encounter with a seeming mad man who believed he knew her. She won't tell him how her heart raced with a different brand of adrenaline right then. One of hope, one of a thrilled curiosity that fit only too perfectly with this addict's starvation. He noted how her pupils dilated at the thought but how she kept her expression somewhat placid was commendable. "You know me then?"

"I remember you."

"What's my name?"

"I-" he started. "I don't know. But I- I _know_ you. Are you- Are you with _them_?"

"Who's them?" There was a sincerity there that could not be shaken - the way her eyes narrowed and she shook her head, not even flinching. This was no lie. And she never raised her voice, though there was an insistence about her that was difficult to refuse. "Who _are_ you?"

He licked his lips. "I shouldn't be here."

"Okay, stay with me now. I need you to stay on track. Could you tell me who you are?"

Like a veteran commander, she gave the order with a tranquil authority. As if she were used to being in charge and she looked at him with a focus that he couldn't back away from. It wasn't threatening, no, but there was a force about her that demanded to be paid attention to - that she had answers, somehow; that she could fix this. It was almost transfixing, how there was a trustworthiness that enveloped her. He didn't know her; he'd never met her before - but she talked to him like he could trust her with his life. Yet for all her commanding kindness and comfort, Bucky was finding it hard to breathe. Pressure built at the centre of his forehead. Colours around him started blurring together while words he could not remember slowly started pouring into his head, mixed with the steadiness of this stranger's own resolve. He swallowed.

"Hey, hey," she spoke again, calm and soft. Though there, too, was the tremble of fear there despite it all. "You're okay. My name's Clara, if that helps? Clara Oswald? D'you think you can remember now?"

"No," he shook his head. He pushed himself away and past her as she started to walk away. "No, I shouldn't be here."

"Hey!" She matched his stride, wading through the sea of pedestrians to keep up with him. "Hey, hang on a minute!"

But there was no use. When he broke into a run, he disappeared into the crowd. Gone. Clara stood, after giving chase, to where the strange man might have gone but there was no sign of him. Gone as quick as breath on a mirror. Like a ghost.

(You'll never find him.)


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm fine."

Ask her how many times she's had to say it. She wouldn't know how to tell you the truth even if she wanted to.

The easiest lies to tell were the ones you wanted to believe were true.

This was a rehearsed reaction. The smile that she practised and wore enough to make everyone believe it was real. Truth be told, that is what so many of them wish to believe in the first place. They would say that they're happy for her; she's finally moving on, she deserves a second chance to be happy, Danny wouldn't have wanted her to sulk her life away. Through all of it, she'd given her dutiful smile - all pressed lips and a single nod, she'd look away as if chastened and change the subject as soon as she's able. And they're only all the more grateful for it that she does. Because the truth is, they don't care. They don't know.

Nobody asks to deal with the burden of your grief. Really, nobody wants to. As much relief as it might give to talk about it - this great and terrible hurt - it's still there at the end of the night. It hung around you like the ghost of a limb. They say they're there for you and they are - but what use is it when it still hurts afterward? Do you not just spread the plague of it - this burden - if you talk about it? Have you not caused enough damage? What would be the point? What would be the point of getting involved again? Would you not hurt them too as well as prolong the hurt you have in yourself?

Clara hasn't wept since it happened. The odd tear might have escaped every so often - she's a control freak and she's good at it; but even _she's_ only human - but she never truly wept, never allowed herself to fall apart.

There were better days, sure. Days when it was easier to keep up the pretense of the facade. The kids didn't need to see that, she would reason. Her kids needed her. (Somebody else always needed her, wasn't that how this whole saviour thing worked?) She couldn't fall apart so she would smile, she would do her marking, she would make jokes and laugh on cue. It was easy to be quick and clever for her; it was hard to mean it. Thankfully, nobody was around to look closely enough.

Her grandmother didn't need to see her cry either. Dear old gran could only take so much heartache, couldn't she? Neither could her father. He had enough to deal with; and, after all, there was always going to be a little part of her that could never forgive him for Linda. How could he even consider another life with anyone else after her mother? Clara hadn't known then the pain of loss but even now, the thought of someone else in Danny's place - in her Doctor's place - was inconceivable. And her dad, bless him, had suffered enough without having to see his only little girl cry. It might make him feel like he'd failed when there was only one of them who'd made the decision to ruin everything she had - and only one of them should pay for it. Isn't this solitary suffering what it meant to repent? On better days, it was easier to remember that she kept it in for their sake. Rather, it was easier to tell herself that this was for their sake than it was to admit the truth that she didn't want to feel it, that she was afraid that if she acted anyway else then the grief would become all she is. Control was the only weapon she had left and she wielded it expertly, even when it hurt to hold.

She had to be happy, for their sake. She had to be brave, for their sake. She had to move on, for their sake. Someone else always mattered more. That was always how it went. On better days, it was easier get through the day.

This was not a better day.

Truly, there was no trigger for it. Metallic jingle of the keys in her hand, she closed the door and entered her empty flat. There was no need for smiles here and so her face was kept drearily blank, her usually pristine posture sunk to a slouch. It was dark inside but not pitch black. The light of the moon outside offered light enough and she'd settled her last pile of marking before Christmas holidays and her bag somewhere of no consequence. She'd find it later. Right then, hers were bones that were too tired to care. When she opened the fridge, dimmed orange light illuminated her face and there was leftover birthday cake still. It was a single slice on a plate. The other side had gone from dark, rich brown to moldy green. She really should throw it out. There were eggs too and, at the back of her mind, she told herself that she'd use those for breakfast tomorrow. She touched nothing, losing her appetite. Her coffee maker broke two days prior and there was two day-old coffee in the pot she'd not bothered to throw or wash out. There were unwashed dishes and containers of old takeaway by the sink. She'd run out of tea just the day before. She'd settled for wine, draining her last bottle, in the only clean mug she had left.

Bathed in darkness, there was nothing else but silence. The wine tasted vile - she'd bought it cheap and hadn't paid attention to the name - and it was too sour for her liking. Still, she kept on. Diligent and dutiful.

Should she finish her marking? It was a Friday night and she wasn't in the mood. It wasn't like she had plans that weekend anyway. She didn't do her marking.

There was the promise of opening up the telly, watching something inconsequential and easily forgettable. Maybe she could catch up on Broadchurch or Downton Abbey or, hell. Something. Watch the news, watch a film or two. Something. But it held no promise to her and she simply stared at the empty, reflective screen. Clara walked away. She went to her sitting room and sat herself on the couch, surrounded by overstuffed throw pillows, with her wine as her only company. She hadn't said a word throughout it all.

For a few days, there had been something else that occupied her time. It had been a most welcome distraction and, for a few days, she felt more alive than she had in months. But with little to no information on him aside from his appearance, there was little else to do except stalk the city limits to try and see if she could find him. There was no such luck and after a week, she'd reasoned that there was little chance she'd ever find him again. He could have fled the country for all she knew - it wasn't like it was particularly difficult. Clara didn't know a thing about him and the only reason for her pursuit was that beginning bud of curiosity at the very core of her. A new adventure, a new wonder - something she hadn't tainted with the mistakes of her own betrayal. It was over a week before she gave up. Usually so difficult to be made hopeless, she did give up. What was the point in pursuing his mystery? Was there anything left in her life worth solving?

It was in the absolute silence that the first tear made itself known. Her heart - heavy in all its swallowed weariness - started beating rapidly as she sat by herself in the darkness, not a thought to bar the malignant whispers of her past from lining each happy memory of hers like cancer. Eyes firmly closed, she scowled at nothing. Lines formed between her brows as even then, she tried to keep it in.

 _Don't cry_ , she told herself. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._

But the tears could not be stopped this time and breathing became a more laborious task than it should have been. Like the tide suddenly rose around her and she was barely keeping her head above water, struggling for air. Her lungs were screaming for it - how they coiled inside and begged for expansion - but she would not give it. Wrapped up in herself, mug of wine held firmly in her hands, she started to curl in. Sharp, heavy breaths, she took through the nose. Her heart was beating so fast and her ears started to clog up as if she were underwater - and, truly, she was drowning. Drowning in the sea of sorrow that she'd bottled in herself and there was nothing else to do now but let the dam burst free, to let the hurt in and to let the pain flow. The tightened coil of her, so desperately wound for her own sake, burst forth.

The mug clashed against the wall with a satisfying crash, red wine coating the rug like blood. Clara cried out to no one in particular - a loud shout worthy of a tennis player - and took whatever she could get her hands on. A pillow, thrown against a shelf. Several books and bric-a-brac came falling down. Another pillow, thrown against another section of the shelf. Repeat. A pillow, thrown on a thrifted lamp that she loved. The bulb's glass shattered upon contact, its sharps splintering all over the ground. There was not a care in her, not right then, as emotion took over. There was no rhyme nor reason, there was no rational thought in her, for once.

Control freak self-driven into madness - was there anything else to do but self-destruct?

All the while, tears ran down her face and blood boiled in her veins. And she yelled. My God, did she yell. She grunted and groaned as if under torture but there was no enemy. The enemy was inside and she wanted to claw it out with her bare hands. Take it away, she prayed as she fell to her knees, scratching the skin of her arms as if trying to claw out the pressing weight of emotion within. In a collapse, she found herself sat once more against the now pillow-less couch, unable to stop the tears from falling. Knees bent, she hugged them close to her chest and rocked back and forth by herself.

In her head, she saw it all so clearly. She saw him whenever she closed her eyes.

"You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship... you betrayed everything I ever stood for- YOU LET ME DOWN!"

His face with fury so easily read, it was not his anger that made her cower. It was not the hatred that she expected that made her want to fall to her knees, that made her pray for sweet relief from living with this pain in her chest that no medicine could alleviate. It was what came after.

" _Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?_ "

God, his forgiveness was worse than anything that she could have imagined. How his eyes - those big, sad eyes - that looked at her then; how she'd broken him, how she'd hurt him - and how he'd still go to hell just because she asked, how he didn't hate her still after what she'd done. Remorse, pure and true, hurt more than any steel dagger to the skin; his kindness, the bluntness of this declaration that was as close as she would ever get to him telling her that he loved her, was more than she could stand. How she'd hurt him - how she'd hurt them, these men who she loved, and how it hurt so much worse to lose them by her own hand.

More than anything, she wanted to call him back. She wanted to call her Doctor back from Gallifrey to rescue her from this putrid pit of her own desolation that she'd dug herself into. But she couldn't, she wouldn't - no matter how hard her hands trembled, no matter how much it hurt. Clara couldn't bear it - the thought of hurting him again. If he were to see her like this, it would hurt him. She couldn't do that again. If she were to die by her own misery's hand and he were to find out how she died - and he would - then it would hurt him. She had to live her life - all the rest of it, in this solitary agony - for his sake. No matter how much she didn't want to anymore - no matter how much she wished for death or any listening deity to simply take her from this self-made misery to which she had invited no one to witness.

She only yelled and cried until the tears ran out for the moment (and they did eventually), until her voice had nothing left to yell, until the shaking had subsided and she found herself laid down, face front, on her sofa. Bits of her hair were damp with spit and tears that she didn't quite know how to deal with. Her lungs started to calm, as did her racing heart; she'll admit to herself that crying it out, even on her own, made it feel lighter. There was a lightness to her shoulders now, though her eyes stung. Breathing, somewhat regulated, she pushed herself upright with weak arms. She closed her eyes and swallowed.

 _Deep breaths, Clara. Deep breaths._

Her mouth felt dry and she gracelessly swiped her arm's shirtsleeve against the moisture that managed to pool from there. Her head ached now from the centre of her head for as much relief as crying gave, it came with its own problems just the same. Exhaustion swept over her and it was all she could do to not topple over herself out of her clothes and into something else more generously cut (something that could let her aching limbs to breathe). But, to Clara Oswald, there is no such thing as relief. Not for long, at least.

Even in the darkness, she could see him there as he stood against the doorway. Too well with the shadows did he blend in. Stock still, lips parted. He didn't dare move throughout it all (though how long he'd been standing there, she didn't know) but he looked at her now. Once upon a time, she might have yelled in fury or fear. Once upon a time, she might have made a jump for something to defend herself with. But she simply looked at him now, remnants of tears still in her puffy eyes, breath caught in her throat.

It was him. The stranger from the street.

"What-" she croaked. There was no warmth in her voice right then, still too raw and strained from crying.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

A/N: This takes place after "Happy Birthday, Clara Oswald", a one-shot I wrote that fits into canon. You don't have to read it but it offers a bit more on her depression. It fits into this just the same, given the timeline of events. However, I am and will be taking liberties with the timeline of the MCU since the timeline with Clara makes relatively more sense.

Comments & reviews are much appreciated! x


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